A significant factor in push to talk audio delay in a wireless communication system is the channel establishment delay between the time when an audible “talk permit tone” beep is played and the target channel being established. In many systems, the transmission time for the amount of audio required to meet the target play out buffer depth is approximately 650 milliseconds of audio, which is composed in approximately four or more packets. The target play out buffer depth corresponds to the amount of extra streaming content needed in order to provide content in the cases where there is variable latency between the mobile stations. Since a same packet length is currently used for all audio packets, these four or more packets of the first 650 milliseconds are typically queued in the infrastructure while waiting for the target channel to complete establishment. The channel establishment delay, in many systems, is at least 1000 milliseconds. Because any time delay in the system can cause resources to be wasted and/or user dissatisfaction, it is desirable to reduce the delay and/or provide more efficient transmission of these data packets between the originator mobile station and the target mobile station.
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